


Johnny's Dilemma

by Highlander_II



Category: Emergency!
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, Other, Trope Bingo Round 3, indecent proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 13:57:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3070691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Highlander_II/pseuds/Highlander_II
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Johnny's been made an offer and he's giving it serious consideration.  Roy's a little concerned about it though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Johnny's Dilemma

Roy glanced up from the newspaper in front of him when his partner bounded into the day room, smiling ear to ear. Clearly something was up. Johnny was far too happy far too early in the morning. He was just about to ask what was going on when the alarm sounded.

It never failed. The alarm had a sadistic way of interrupting anything and everything.

He and Johnny took off in the squad for their call. Roy would have to wait a bit before he could find out what had Johnny so bouncy.

They jumped out of the squad, grabbed their gear, and made their way to the distraught woman on the lawn. "What happened?" Roy asked her.

"Oh!" the woman cried, flailing toward the house. "It's my husband! He just fell over!"

Roy and Johnny followed her inside and made a beeline for the patient. They got him positioned on the floor and began their examination. Johnny on the bio-phone and Roy getting patient vital signs, all thoughts of Johnny's earlier behavior were on the back-burner of Roy's mind.

The woman couldn't say whether her husband had hit his head or not, nor could she give them much useful information at all. Not in her nervous, panicked state.

They did what they could, then put the patient and his wife in the ambulance – the wife up front as per usual – and sent them on to Rampart. Johnny rode with them while Roy drove the squad along behind.

The entire trip to the hospital, Roy couldn't help thinking back to what had Johnny so happy and excited that morning. He could speculate, but with Johnny, anything was possible.

It wasn't until they were sitting at a table with a couple burgers and some fries that he got a chance to ask about that morning. "Out with it, Johnny. What was going on with you this morning?"

"Hm?" Johnny said. "Oh! So, I bumped into this woman, right? And she said she would pay me five thousand dollars to sleep with her husband." He took a bite of his hamburger, looking quite pleased with himself.

Roy, confused about at least a couple of things, frowned and asked, "You know that means she wants you to have sex with him, right?"

Johnny's reaction was considerably more affronted than Roy was expecting. "I know that," he snapped.

"So, why are you so happy?" Clearly there was something wrong with this scenario.

"When I told her 'no', she raised the amount to ten thousand."

Another frown found its way onto Roy's face. "Why is that better?"

"It's ten thousand dollars," Johnny rebutted.

"To have sex," Roy stated. "With her husband."

Johnny's mouth gaped, burger poised just outside. "I know that, Roy."

"You're not actually going to do it, are you?"

"Well, why wouldn't I?"

Roy frowned even deeper this time. "Prostitution is against the law." Which should have been clear, even to Johnny.

"It's not prostitution, Roy!" he countered.

"No? Then –" he was interrupted by the HT – another run. "Come on. But we're not finished."

Johnny frowned as he grabbed a last bite of his burger and got up from his chair. He didn't say anything though, not until after the run – no fire, just a rescue of a cat in a tree.

"Look, Johnny, if someone pays you for sex, it's prostitution," Roy said.

"Do we have to talk about this now?" Johnny asked with a sneer.

"When should we talk about this, Johnny?" He looked at his partner. "Huh? The night you go over to sleep with him?"

Johnny kept on frowning. Roy was sure he wanted to know why the idea of sleeping with men wasn't the part under scrutiny, but he never asked. Instead, he glared right back at Roy, eyes squinted in that way that made him look serious and, he was pretty sure, attractive as hell to the nurses at Rampart.

"Who made this offer anyway, Johnny?" Roy asked again. This part seemed to be eating at him more than much of the other key points.

This time, Johnny turned and fed Roy a wicked, slippery grin.

"You're not going to tell me, are you?"

"Nope," Johnny answered simply.

"At least tell me if you even like this guy. If you're even interested in him at all."

That confused-offended look spread across Johnny's face again. "If I didn't like the guy, I would've already said 'no', Roy."

He thought Johnny was making a good point, but that wasn't helping as much as he'd hoped. So, it was someone Johnny was already familiar enough with to want to sleep with him. And, it was someone who could afford to give away ten-thousand dollars on a whim. There was no one, at all, he could think of that they knew, who had that kind of money just laying around.

Roy drove for a bit, then pulled off into an empty parking lot. He stopped the squad and faced Johnny. "Look, Johnny, this whole idea – this proposal – you've been given, it really concerns me."

"Why's that?"

"Something's just not right about it," he said. "For instance, why would someone just, out of the blue, offer a stranger – or a friend – money to have sex with their spouse? Second, unless they know you're hard up for cash, why would they care? Or, what else do they know that would make them present this idea to you anyway?"

Johnny frowned. Then blinked as though he were really thinking about something. Then he frowned again even harder. "Well, when you think about it that way, Roy…"

The radio interrupted them again for another rescue run. Roy informed Johnny that they still weren't done with their conversation and keyed the ignition on the squad.

* * *

"I just don't see what the big deal is, Roy. I like the guy. I like his wife. She's offering me a gift if I do this for them. Where's the problem?" Johnny asked when Roy brought it up yet again.

Roy pondered that for a moment. Then, "It could change how you and your friend feel about each other. And, if it's someone you work with, that can make work really awkward."

"Huh. You know, I hadn't thought about that. Huh." Johnny slid from the squad and went to the day room. Roy found him sitting on the couch with a pensive expression pointed toward the floor. "Roy, maybe this idea isn't so great after all." Roy waited. "I mean, ten grand, but I still have to see this guy sometimes." Johnny blinked up at Roy. "I – I'm gonna have to tell 'em 'no'."

Roy nodded agreement. "I think that's a good idea, Johnny."


End file.
